Healthy ways to cope with the pain of losing someone

There’s time for everything. Time to live and time to die. All of us will deal with personal loss. Though for us Christians we hold on to God’s word in Philippians 1:21 that living means living for Christ, and dying is even better, we usually have to let ourselves hurt to heal. Here’s help I gleaned from Seventeen magazine to help us sort through all of those feelings:

What to expect

1. That day. There’s no “right” way to feel when you get such bad news- you may suddenly sob, but you may also feel shock or numbness. This is exactly what I felt when I heard that my uncle died, tsunami hit Japan and the flash flood in Cagayan de Oro. It takes some people a little longer to process a death, and that’s okay. If you need help planning a funeral, don’t hesitate to accept help from friends who offered their services. It’s not easy to handle funeral when someone you cherish just lost.

2. The funeral. You’re hurting-and so everyone around you at the funeral. But when you’re all together , honoring the person you lost and allowing yourself to experience all the painful emotions, it actually begins the process that will ultimately make things better.

3. The weeks that follow. You may already feel mostly healed, but for others it take longer. You may not be able to concentrate in class. You may flip out on friends for no reasons. You might even have physical symptoms , like shortness of breath or trouble sleeping . Anger, confusion, resentment of those who aren’t suffering like you are- it’s all normal, so be patient with yourself and with others at this stage.

4. A few months later. Most people miss the person terribly, but the crushing grief symptoms start to let up. So if you’re still distracted by your loss on a daily basis, it may be time to talk to a counselor, who can help you figure out ways to go on living without feeling guilty about it.

5. The future. Even though you’ve moved on, you’ll still be hit with a flash of grief every now and again. When that happens, give yourself time to look at photos or listen to music and cry-and ignore people who say, “You should be over it by now,” because that’s just not true.